


All Souls' Night

by agapi42



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, Hackle Summer Trope Challenge, Post-Season/Series 02, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 12:08:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15581667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agapi42/pseuds/agapi42
Summary: Friday 2nd November: All Souls’ Night, a time to think on loss. On Halloween, they gave thanks for all they had. It was time to consider what they could have lost, whathadbeen lost.





	All Souls' Night

Friday 2nd November: All Souls’ Night, a time to think on loss. On Halloween, they gave thanks for all they had. Now it was time to consider what they could have lost, what _had_ been lost.

It was a rather mild night for the time of year but Ada still had a fire roaring in the grate. Its warmth did nothing for the chill that crept under her skin, curled in her belly.

She was grateful, heart-stoppingly grateful for the way things had worked out. She dared not think too much about it, for fear of her world shattering, of waking to realise events had followed a different path. Hecate was, as Pippa said, the witchiest witch. She breathed magic, bled magic, _was_ magic in a way others simply weren’t. That she had been prepared to sacrifice something so integral to herself to rescue the girls, the school and Ada herself... Ada had never doubted Hecate’s devotion but such a demonstration of its depths terrified her. It shouldn’t have, being a mirror of her own, but the key difference was that hers would never inspire her to actions that endangered Hecate. If such a thing had come to pass... she could never lose Hecate, and, magic or no magic, would never have sent her from the castle that was entirely her home, but would that have been worse? Would that have been torment to Hecate, surrounded by magic she could no longer use and people who knew her before? Hecate herself had said exactly that regarding Esmerelda.

The clock chimed, shaking her from her thoughts. Hecate would have finished her rounds some time ago. Perhaps she’d be a while longer, keeping to the pattern of the past two days: slipping into bed and curling round her when she was already half-asleep; returning to her own room sometime before dawn. Ada picked up the book that had slipped from her lap to the floor. She wanted Hecate beside her as she settled into sleep; wanted to hold her, comfortingly present and unharmed; wanted to wake in immediate reassurance of her presence.

As it happened, it was barely ten minutes later that Hecate appeared, wrapped in her dressing gown with her hair falling loose down her back.

“Ada?”

Ada smiled up at her from the depths of the armchair. “I decided to wait up. There was something I wanted to ask you while I was still awake enough to do so.”

Hecate gave a short nod. She pressed her lips together, looked downwards; her shoulders rose slightly. _What can she be expecting_? Ada wondered. Rising, she closed the distance between them and took Hecate’s hands in hers.

“Will you stay tonight? Please,” she added, pre-empting objections. “One night will not cause disaster.”

The lines of Hecate’s body softened just slightly. “Are you sure about that?” She raised her eyes to meet Ada’s, a dash of dark humour evident.

“After the last couple of years, I’m quite sure we are the best-protected magical academy in Europe.”

Hecate’s gaze slid away. “It’s not enough.”

“It’s more than enough.” Ada raised one hand to lay against the side of Hecate’s face, urging but not pushing her to look up.

A familiar conflict—uncertainty, yearning, self-disapprobation—fluttered across her face. Ada stood waiting. Hecate closed her eyes for a long moment, let out her breath, turned her head to place a kiss on Ada’s palm.

“Is that a yes?” Ada said gently.

“Yes,” Hecate murmured, all but inaudible, the shape and sound of the word clear in her lips and breath against the palm of Ada’s hand.

 Ada led her by the hand through the green door between her sitting room and her bedroom.

 

* * *

 

“Is there anything you need to do?” Ada asked.

Hecate shook her head. She had readied herself for bed before coming to Ada’s rooms, intending only to crawl in beside her for a couple of hours, an indulgence in itself, selfishly reassuring herself that Ada was still here, still warm and alive and safe, no thanks to her. She perched on the edge of the bed, straight-backed and tense, listening to Ada bustling in the bathroom and chastising herself. Too weak to stay away, too greedy for unearned warmth, too—

 “What’s wrong?”

Her lack of movement had perturbed Ada. Hecate took a breath, tried to construct an answer that would satisfy and soothe her. Ada mustn’t worry, that was the important thing. The silence stretched.

“I never wish to make you uncomfortable,” Ada said quietly. “If you need to leave...”

Hecate twisted, turning to Ada, who stood by the bathroom door, not approaching, giving her space.

“No, Ada, no, not that. I don’t...”

Ada stepped closer carefully, taking a seat on the bed next to her. “Then what?”  She raised her hand, pushing Hecate’s hair away from her face, lingering at her jawline.

Dearest Ada, so sweet and solicitous. She couldn’t bear it. She closed her eyes rather than see such unmerited concern.

“I don’t deserve you.” For a moment she wasn’t sure if she had actually spoken. Ada’s soft intake of breath assured her she had. “I _failed_ you, Ada! I failed the school and every witch here.”

“Oh, my darling.” Ada’s other hand clasped her arm, moved upwards.

“I was so cold and so scared and _too slow_.” She felt again the loss of Ada’s magic, stealing the breath from her lungs; the ice crawling through her veins, stopping her from stepping forward in Ethel’s place. She remembered Mildred pushing her magic (so recently reclaimed) into the stone and the dark pit of helplessness in her stomach as she shouted at Mildred to stop, reached out as far as she could; her magic still raw, her legs wouldn’t _work_.

“You didn’t fail me, dearest heart. You could never fail me. Giving everything is no failure.”

Hecate curled forward, pressing her face into the soft fleece of Ada’s pyjamas. Ada stroked her hair.

“If anything, I should apologise to you. I was so determined things would go well this term, I didn’t pay your concerns proper heed.”

“It doesn’t matter.” The words were muffled against Ada; Hecate pulled back to speak more clearly. “You have an open heart, Ada Cackle, and are trusting to a fault. If the world ever bruised you sufficiently to change that, it would be a tragedy.”

Ada blinked rapidly. “My dear,” she whispered, the syllables catching in her throat.

Hecate pressed a kiss to Ada’s forehead. “And if things had gone as I wished, Miss Mould would have been dismissed by the second week of term and there would have been no-one to stop Mildred Hubble giving her magic to save the school.”

She imagined living day after day in a school kept alive by her pupil’s magic, the bitterness of guilt at the back of her throat, the weight of it in her chest. Miss Mould, as an adult and a teacher, had been in a better position to make that choice but that did not mean the debt was light.

Hecate wanted her dressing gown off and folded neatly over the back of the chair. She wanted to be in bed beside Ada with the duvet drawn up over them. Within a second, those things were so. How hard, how unrelentingly hard and tedious and inefficient to be non-magical.

Ada rolled towards her and waved a hand to extinguish the lights.

“Have you heard from the Magic Council? Any news?”

“Nothing more.” Ada’s breath was soft on her neck. “They are ‘considering’ our petition.”

Hecate stared up into the darkness. “Do you think...”

She didn’t want to finish the sentence.

“You were most eloquent,” Ada reassured her.

With a sigh, Hecate rolled onto her side. Ada curled around her and made no complaint when Hecate tucked her cold feet between Ada’s legs, as always.

“What do you think are the chances we’ll both get to sleep through the night?” Hecate muttered.

“Fairly high,” Ada returned. “But then I am an incurable optimist.”

“Even optimists are right sometimes.”

 “I hope so.”

 


End file.
